Zika Virus: CDC Issues Travel Warning For Pregnant Women

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued interim travel guidance on Friday for pregnant women and women of childbearing age who are planning to become pregnant, warning against travel to Brazil and 13 other countries in the Americas where the Zika virus has been linked to brain deformities in newborns.

On Saturday U.S. health officials confirmed that a baby born with brain damage at a hospital in Oahu, Hawaii, was infected by the virus in what is the first case of the disease in a birth on U.S. soil.

The main mosquito species responsible for spreading Zika, Aedes aegypti, flourishes in the far Southern US, and a second species that may transmit the virus, Aedes albopictus, ranges as far north as NY. Health officials are alarmed because of a possible link between the virus and a birth defect called microcephaly that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and potential developmental problems.

Brazil’s Minister of Health, Marcelo Castro, speaking with the press on Monday, January 11th, photo by Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil.

Until more is known, the CDC recommends that pregnant women at any stage of their pregnancy consider postponing travel to areas where there has been Zika virus transmission.

“Genetic sequence analysis showed that the virus in the four cases was the same as the Zika virus strain now circulating in Brazil”.

Zika can be transmitted when someone with the virus is bitten by a mosquito and then that mosquito bites another human.

Travelers can protect themselves from this disease by taking steps to prevent mosquito bites.

Earlier this week, CDC scientists found evidence of the virus in the brain tissue of two Brazilian infants with microcephaly who died 24 hours after birth and in the placentas of two Brazilian women who miscarried fetuses with the condition. In December, Puerto Rico reported its first confirmed case in someone who had not recently traveled, meaning they caught it from a mosquito on the island. The country welcomed about 656,000 US visitors in 2014, the latest year for which data is available.

On Friday night, the CDC issued a travel advisory suggesting that pregnant women put off travel to affected regions, and issued a health alert to doctors to be on the lookout for the virus. Pregnant women who live in Brazil in areas of the country where there has been a high incidence of the Zika virus have begun advising women to “delay having a child”. In October, doctors in Pernambuco state, Brazil, noticed a surge in cases of microcephaly. Symptoms are usually mild and experienced for a few days to a week. “Given this, it is important that we maintain and improve our ability to identify and test for Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases”.

The Zika virus had never been known to cause birth defects or other illnesses until a year ago.

“What we really need is a vaccine that we can administer to pregnant women or women of child-bearing age”, says Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Its symptoms often include fever, headaches and joint pain, as well as skin rashes and conjunctivitis.